Taboo Tabernacle: God's Design & the Cultures Demise, One Man's Journey from the Secular to the Sacred

By A.W. Archer

At the end of the day, Taboo Tabernacle isnt just about taboo topics like sex, drugs, rock n roll, religion, politics, faith, witchcraft, and cannabis. It isnt even about science, math, history, medicine, justice or apologetics; although, there is much of that in it. Its about connecting people to Christ in a way that can not only surprise them, but can electrify them. From the depths of space to the lowest sub-atomic particle in the human body, the sustainers fingerprint is everywhere. I want to help people get so excited about Gods amazing love that they cant stop talking about it. From the balanced believer to the super secularist, I believe that all people suffer from false presuppositions about life and the way things are at one point or another. Whether its from the way we were raised, something traumatic that happened to us growing up, or perhaps it is simply the default consensus opinion of the culture we are currently in; we all have presuppositions, some true and some false. I would like all of us to start breaking down the man made walls of false presupposition that separate us today, and replace them with bridges of truth and understanding from a biblical worldview that makes sense in both the physical world and spiritual realm. Get ready to look at life through a whole new lens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532008993

A.W. Archer

A.W. Archer is a professional musician, film maker, author, worship leader and teacher born and raised in southern California. As a product of the 80’s, divorce in the 90’s and novice of witchcraft at the turn of the 21st century, A.W. Archer walked away from anything sacred and into a life of secular pagan pursuits. After reaching the darkest depths of the human mind, A.W. Archer was saved by a supernatural force that changed him from the inside out, and he has lived his life in response to the Savior ever since.

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Taboo Tabernacle

God’s Design & The Cultures Demise, One Man’s Journey From The Secular To The Sacred

Copyright © 2016 A.W. Archer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

NIV

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

KJV

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-0898-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0899-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/18/2016

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Origins

Chapter 2 How to do Secular Love…

Chapter 3 The Making of a Supervillain

Chapter 4 Yoga was fun. Wanna do some ecstasy?

Chapter 5 Romeo & Juliet go their separate ways

Chapter 6 A Mortal Enemy

Chapter 7 Big families and the Big Apple

Chapter 8 15 minutes

Chapter 9 Metamorphosis

Chapter 10 Ecclesia

Chapter 11 Knowledge

Chapter 12 Proof

Chapter 13 Creation speaks

Chapter 14 Prophecy and the end of a Postmodern Revolutionist

Chapter 15 Drop the Microphone… Exit stage left.

Chapter 16 Growing pains and the proposition of the Gospel

Chapter 17 A Whole New World

Chapter 18 The Last Night Terror

Chapter 19 God’s perfection, the Cannabis inception, and a Snake’s deception

Chapter 20 The Cleanest Billion Dollar Crop: Brought to you by God

Chapter 21 How to create a Consensus Opinion: Misdirection and Deception.

Chapter 22 Healing: Secular or Sacred?

Chapter 23 Cleansing False Presuppositions with Truth and Understanding.

Chapter 24 Hurricanes and Visions.

Chapter 25 Breaking Walls and Building Bridges

Chapter 26 The Big Picture

Chapter 27 Conclusion; Believer or not?

Adorations

Group Discussion/ Question & Answer

Giving gravity to moral astronauts and breaking the walls of false presuppositional thought.

-Warning: This is a true story of education, divination, sanctification, moderation, and celebration. (Not suitable for the faint of heart or children) Some names were changed to protect the identity and the families of the innocent.

I am the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. Please know that this testimony is true. - A.W. Archer

ta·boo

təˈbo͞o,taˈbo͞o

noun

- A social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

Synonyms: prohibition, proscription, veto, interdiction, interdict, ban, restriction.

The taboo against healing on the Sabbath

adjective

- Prohibited or restricted by social custom.

Synonyms: forbidden, prohibited, banned, proscribed, interdicted, outlawed, illegal, illicit, unlawful, restricted, off limits.

Cannabis Hemp was a taboo subject in the 20th century

verb

Traditional societies taboo cannabis for its many theological implications.

tab·er·nac·le

ˈtabərˌnakəl

noun: tabernacle; plural noun: tabernacles

- (in biblical use) a fixed or movable habitation, typically of light construction.

The LORD’s tabernacle was a tent used as a sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant by the Israelites during the Exodus and until the building of the Temple.

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.-John 21:25, NIV …(This, is one of those books)

Introduction

"Who are you?… Where did we come from?… Where are we going?… Why are we here?… What is the meaning of life?… Well, that all depends on who you ask.

Is there truth?… Is there meaning?… Where is our final destination?… Are you God or man?… Are you human or animal? Are you created with purpose or are you destroyed by default? Are your thoughts clear or clouded with fear?…

Am I the pitiless indifference of man spreading like a virus across the earth?… If a man is just matured bacteria, can I be god over man?..

What is absolute? Who defines what is good? How do we know evil exists? How can we know anything to be real? How do You know You’re not dreaming right now?… Are there any answers? What is information? What is knowledge? What is wisdom? How long have we been here? How long will we stay?… What’s next? Where have you come from? Where are you going? Why are there people, places and things, and not nothing? Why is there everything instead of nothing? Why anything? Why this instead of that? Why us instead of them? Why you and not me? Why me and only me? Who knows?… Are there answers? Why ask questions at all when we really don’t want to hear the answers? Why postulate anything if it changes nothing when you find out everything?… Do you really want to know? Do you really care? Do you really think it will change anything? Do you want to try? Will you walk the walk? Will you enter through the door if you find it? Will you do what needs to be done? Will you live by design or by default?… Sail with a compass or without? Will you sing songs or a stone’s silence? Will you bend or will you break? Will your thoughts be divine or will they be divided?

Taboo, or not taboo? That is the question…

Sex, drugs, rock & roll… Angels and demons… Sinners and saints… From conservatives to liberals… Witches to wackos… Vampires to visionaries… I’ve seen some incredible things. I’ve made some great choices and made some big mistakes in my life. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotion, rebellion, passion, discovery and adventure. I’ve learned a lot of things that have changed me, some for better & some for worse. From breaking jaws to healing hands, divination to medication, debauchery to monogamy and everything in between… I’ve been there and I’ve done that.

Hey, does this bother you? Can we as a ‘moral’ human race coexist in a universe governed by absolute truth while humanity chases plurality?… It used to keep me up at night… Used to.

In this book I will touch upon many subjects. All very small pieces of a much bigger picture. Who am I? I’m just your average Taboo Tabernacle, Alexander Wayne Archer; or just Xander.

If you’re like me, you might feel like there is something very wrong with the world around you. There are many things out of place while many seem to make perfect sense, yet you know something needs to change… You are right. We live in a world of truth and fiction, peace and friction.

In this book you will not find the solution to all of life’s problems but merely the understanding of where to find the source of all that is good, right and true. I dedicate this book to all the children, men and women who have suffered needlessly or died prematurely from sickness or disease, both physically and mentally that could have been prevented with a proper understanding and edification through God’s Word.

This book is meant to give hope to the hopeless through the understanding that what man and the enemy intend for evil, God can renew for good. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for providing everything needed to share this message; His message. A special thanks to my wife Lyanna for all her love, compassion, support and inspiration.

A little background

My wife Lyanna and I had both been raised in Americano Christian type of households. We were both raised in the West at the turn of the 21st century. We had both gone to Church growing up but neither of us really understood much about the Bible, Jesus or what it REALLY meant to be a Christian… But I sure did love Christmas presents growing up!… Lyanna was raised Christian with conservative, old fashioned American undertones and rarely attended Church in her teen years as a family. My family spent some Sunday mornings attending a Lutheran Church. Yet, neither religion nor tradition could save us.

We were dating on and off close to 10 years, and by the 3rd year and 4th or 5th break up, we had walked away from any form of faith that we had had previously, and we fell into the New Age movement essentially by default. You know the rhetoric; I’m Spiritual but not religious… When we die, we all just become a part of the universe.… Organized religion is a crutch for the weak minded… What’s your sign?… and so on… I was promiscuous, debaucherous, paganistic, relativistic and soon apathetic towards the rest of the world. Why? Because, in my mind, there was no more devil and no more God, and thus no more moral accountability. In my worldview I thought I was free. I was a prisoner in plain sight. Blinded by the secular, the flesh, and the enemy.

Life felt like a weird dream… You know the one… Where you awake in the sky and it feels like you’re flying. You can see the mountain tops and the sunset on the ocean horizon miles away… Then, a few moments go by and you realize that you’re getting closer and closer to the earth and you’re not really flying, you’re falling! Faster and faster towards the earth, just a moment away from oblivion!… Yep, life was like that.

Left only with problems and myself to blame, I was on a path of destruction. I personally believed that man was the cause and solution to all of life’s problems (A.K.A; You are the problem, and I am the solution!) Little to my knowledge, there was a light at a fork in the road on that long and dark path of life known as the broadway… It was a narrow path, but I took it.

Fast WAY forward Into 2012… Through many trials and tribulation, Lyanna and I had both been touched and changed by a force greater than ourselves. On a mission for the God of the universe, and the meaning of life, I had to seek and find what it was that had been beckoning me away from the life I once knew. In this story you will find out how, through disease and suffering - renewal and restoration can be found. Through an onslaught of experiences, revelations and undeniable proof in my life, I came to find peace and freedom in the understanding of who I am because of who Christ is. I was baptised and became born again in November of 2012, all in God’s providential and perfect time… Some of you might be scratching your heads thinking What is he talking about?… Not about religion, but a relationship.

So, how did we get here? How did we go from New Age to new life?… Was it luck? Was it chance? Was it part of a random selection?… Was it evolution?… Or did I finally just pull myself up by my proverbial bootstraps?.. No. This could not be any amount of superficial change, but a supernatural one. At multiple sites in my life I saw, heard, felt and experienced revelation from something greater than myself. Was this coincidence or dumb luck?.. I think not my dear Watson. I believe that all of this, like all things, happen for a reason.

In this book you will discover things that may surprise you, excite you or even shock and scare you. All in all, I hope and pray that my words would cause you to rethink what it means to be human on every level, especially the ones you may not be comfortable with, believer or not. Get ready to rethink your presuppositions and challenge your worldview. Amen?… Amen!!!

Chapter 1

Origins

… There I was, coming out a dark cavern into a cobblestone cathedral in the dead of the night with only the pale moonlight from the open window to guide my sight. I walked the path that led to the stairway, that led to the grand hall where the moonlight shined ever so bright. The pathway is dark but the grand hall holds light. I feel a great fear, a legion of fright. The walls are empty black holes on my left and my right. I hear a few whispers in the darkness around me, as the path became thinner with demonic surroundings. I ran and I ran, but the darkness closed in, consumed by my demons, consumed by my sin. I wanted my freedom. I wanted the light. I needed a savior to stand in this fight. The darkness was cold and clouded with pain, I prayed and I hoped for mercy to reign…

So, our story begins in the Milky way galaxy on a little planet known as Earth. I, A.W. Archer, was born in North America in 1983. Parents: Mitchell and Francesca; My dad was an Italian/ Irish brute from the east coast. I suppose he was more street smart than book smart, but he had a big heart. He didn’t really hold a job for too long from what I remember growing up, so things were always a little stressful around the house when he wasn’t working, especially for my mother. Dad was always more of a buddy than a father figure, but I suppose his dad wasn’t the best father either. My mother was born and raised in Havana Cuba. She and her family defected to America when she was 13. Mom did pretty well for a woman without a degree. She was the breadwinner and usually had to be the law enforcer/ bad cop around the house. My father was more on the playful and lenient side, and rarely disciplined my sister and I. They would both get overwhelmed by finances or worldly things, and then fights would erupt. This got worse and worse over the years, but I guess they did the best they could; At least, the best they could on their own…

My younger sister Aria and I were pretty close until the separation and divorce of our parents in the late 90’s. She’s 5 years younger than me, so the divorce was much harder on her because she was so young. She later had a meth addiction and was sent to a facility in Utah, where she got treatment and developed a passion for working with animals. She’s now a Veterinary Assistant and I’m so proud of her for how far she’s come. You see, I’ve done a few drugs in the past before I came to Christ, but crystal meth is a beast all on it’s own. I watched meth tear my sister apart while my then single mother tried to hold it all together on her own. I was rebellious in my own way, but meth turned my sister into a rage filled, psychotic, lying thief. I once had to restrain my sister from attacking my mother when I was 18. Needless to say, things were much tougher without a solid family structure or a responsible man around to lead me in the ways of life and manhood. Dad wasn’t around too much in my teen years. He and my mother grew to hating each other more and more. The bitterness and unforgiveness plagued them both for years. I can’t truly say that either of them has ever forgiven the other.

But hey, I get it… They would say I did the best I could.… Mom would say "Everybody has crap to deal with. Everyone has problems. Just deal with it!"… Dad would either give an excuse, blame somebody else or say nothing because he hasn’t called in years and may or may not be in jail at the moment… I wish my problems were isolated to just my home, then I could have just left, problem solved. In reality things were worse outside the home. Did I tell my parents that I was bullied, beat up and belittled throughout elementary school? No… Did I mention that I was molested?… Not for decades, I was too ashamed… Did I mention I was on antidepressants when I tried to kill myself in Junior high?… Yes, but dad didn’t think it was necessary to take me to the ER… He was more of the "Walk it off" type. I threw up and hallucinated for about 3 days. I would see large black holes in walls that went into the depths of nothingness, thinking if I got too close I would fall in forever… Look, I’m not trying to play the victim here, I just want to give you a solid picture of my piece of the big picture. As you can begin to imagine, there didn’t seem to be any sign of hope anywhere in my childhood. I felt empty in a broken and fallen world that could only exchange my hopes and dreams for anger and bitterness. It all started out so nice though… Birthday parties and Disneyland trips… but then it faded into an awkward melodrama.

My friend Loki and I started experimenting with cannabis in the 6th grade. We were smoking tobacco cigarettes in the summer going from 5th to 6th grade. He stole some cannabis from his older brother who was in highschool, who had been growing it on his roof in a small space on the back roof facing the mountainside where it was hard to spot by the neighbors. We would smoke in the mountains and under bridges, but using cannabis felt different back then, way different than how it affects me now as an adult. Back then, I didn’t like it too much. It just made me laugh uncontrollably and crave excessive amounts of chilli cheese fries at the local diner. I suppose Giggly would be the single best word to describe how I felt. We would ride around town on our bikes or skateboard and just cause a bit of trouble… But honestly, I was causing trouble long before I ever smoked cannabis and long after I stopped smoking cannabis in mid junior high when I switched to just cigarettes and alcohol instead. The more acceptable choice in the USA…

What does any of this have to do with Christianity, natural medicine or you? We’ll get to that… More importantly; Why did all of this happen? So that the works of God may be displayed. That’s why!

In the Holy Bible, in the book of John chapter 9, when passing a man born blind, Jesus’ disciples asked Him Rabbi (Hebrew for Teacher), Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answers Neither this man nor his parents sinned… but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.… Now, was Christ saying that this man and his parents NEVER ever sinned? Absolutely not. Jesus was merely pointing out the fact that in this particular instance, it was not any specific sin done by this man or his parents that caused the blindness, but this was an opportunity to reveal God’s healing power and divine plan. This is apparent when considering supralapsarianism. You see, when sin entered the world, death, disease and suffering were the byproduct that followed.

Supralapsarianism is an extravagant and powerful word, meaning that God, contemplating man as yet unfallen, knew we would sin and fall from His grace and perfection, yet He still prepared a salvation plan to re-enter His presence knowing we all would have the free will to receive Him and His divine plan or to choose to reject Him and all He has provided.

At any rate, Jesus heals the blind man and fulfils prophecies of Isaiah.

In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.- Isaiah 29:18, NIV

Say to those who have an anxious heart, Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert- Isaiah 35:4-6, NIV

I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.- Isaiah 42:6-7, NIV

All in the course of His short 3 year ministry, He healed thousands. This is why the cross is often associated with health. The Red cross symbolises emergency, Blue mostly representing protection or insurance. Green would obviously represents natural medicine. Is this a secular coincidence?…I think not, but perhaps this symbol is holding fast to the highest historical moment in all of human history; Perhaps the cross reminds us of the most powerful healer in all of history; Jesus of Nazareth.

So, knowing now what I didn’t know then, I see all the pieces come together. Then I was a victim, I was a coward, I was lost. I was on a path to destruction and no man made philosophy or pharmaceutical compound could save me…This snow balled for years to come. Junior High was a nightmare. I turned into a vicious bully and an apathetic American degenerate by age 13. I remember picking on the other have nots to avoid being the victim any longer. I went from the bullied to the bully, from the hunted to the hunter, from victim to the vicious! Vandalism, theft, trespassing, burglary, assault and endless perversions were what I knew and did best at that point. Verily, I was the picture of corruption in America’s misled youth and I wasn’t even using cannabis anymore.

You see, it wasn’t the booze or the cigarettes that corrupted me, those things were a secondary byproduct of my defiled and corrupted heart. It’s not what went into my mouth that made me the problem child of the late 90’s, it was the overflow of pride, pain and anger in my thoughts, my words, and my actions that came from the core of my heart and spilled over into my thoughts, actions and lifestyle decisions. I began to pursue more aggressive and somewhat productive recreational activities like taekwondo, football and dating girls.

What about coexistence?

Then I began to have thoughts about the existential… Humanism, Atheism, Nihilism, Agnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mysticism, postmodernism, Catholicism and every other man made isim was soon to be discovered by my rebellious and spoiled heart of stone. All religions seemed to be empty and false in my arrogant pubescent simple mind. Not to say that I was completely wrong, because we know now that all religions can’t be true because of one simple fact, they contradict one another.

It’s funny now that I think about it, I used to like those "Coexist" stickers on the back bumper of cars, comprised of all the different religious symbols. Until I did some research and realized that while they can try to coexist, they can’t all be true. Islam teaches that Allah is God and Jesus was just a man. Buddhism teaches that there is no God, but that you are god, I am god and everyone is god; So that means Hitler is god too right?… Nein. One must relinquish their desire for anything to find true peace… Which means you can’t desire to love or be loved… Ouch, that sounds emotionally lobotomizing… New Age teaches that there are many paths to god. The Judeo-Christian belief teaches that Christ is the way, truth and the life and the only way to God and heaven. Atheism teaches that you create or evolve your own way, your own truth and your own life. Satanism teaches us to do what we want… Can they really all logically and morally coexist if we’re being honest?… Maybe on a bumper sticker, but not in the USA that is divided on the terms of our constitution. Not in a country that was founded upon the Judeo Christian beliefs and moral code so that one may practice freely their religion, but now that country is abolishing the very ground that it was built on, the very foundation of our constitution is being diminished and destroyed along with our culture and society. In an America that was founded on Freedom Of Religion, we have scrambled words and meanings in the past century to so twist the constitution that now instead of freedom of religion, secular America has granted themselves freedom From religion… But I digress…

Junior High was basically survival of the ruthless. The other punks and I would try to hurt people, cause trouble and start fights… I remember beating another boy up, knowing that if I didn’t, I would be ostracized instead. I remember that I would be forced in elementary school to fight my own friends and other kids I didn’t know by the older bullies, and if I didn’t, I would have to take the beating.. I often took the beating over hitting other innocent kids… There were a lot of bad apples in Santa Clarita Valley CA in the 90’s by the way, and I remember just about all of them. But in junior high I gained some of their respect or whatever it was you wanna call it that stupid adolescents have for one another when one does something evil or stupid to impress the others… I got a piece! I felt accepted, and it felt good. Not like true goodness that can only come from knowing and walking with Christ, but more like an imitation of good with horrible side of malice and apathy.

My grades dropped from bad to worse, and I had to get placed into a special education class because I had ADD and ADHD and clearly I was a vandal with no intent to learn. So they took me out of mainstream classes and put me in classes with kids suffering with severe learning disabilities. Without homework now, I only had more time on my hands to make trouble and waste my life… Puberty hit me like a train and suddenly my lustful eyes were born…

Idle hands are the devil’s playground, idle lips are his mouthpiece. - Proverbs 16:27, NIV

All I wanted to do was have sex and have fun. I know! A boy in junior high is so complicated and difficult to figure out right!?! I spent the remainder of junior high in a quest for sexual experiences. I was hooking up with a slew of girls that had a lack of self respect and impulsive desires like myself, and we let the sin begin. Of course, alcohol and cigs were prominent factors in the picture… I mean, how else are girls gonna know how cool I am if I’m not taking long drags from my smoke like James Dean and slamming vodka like 007. I was a champion drinker, smoker, and brawler. Girls love watching you beat up a guy who’s too drunk to fight back and has no friends at the party to help him out. It’s Sexy when a man punches another man… At least, that’s what I thought. All I understood was the fact that the meanest and most brutal guys got the most female attention for all their aggressive and destructive behavior. Monkey see, monkey do…

Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks - Isaiah 5:22, NIV

I made friends with some horrible guys. A few lived with in yelling distance. They used me and manipulated me from day to day. They would say things like Hey Alex, go and grab your dad’s video camera so we can film you jumping off the roof with your skateboard. It was like the MTV show "Jackass" and I was the ass… Some nights they would only heep verbal diarrhea on me and would poke fun at my weaknesses and exploit my foolishness. Other nights were spent having fireworks shot at me, eating bugs for porn, skateboarding off roofs, lighting fires indoors, microwaving stuff that doesn’t belong in the microwave, lighting poop on fire on doorsteps, defecating on people’s door steps… Putting live bees in mailboxes, ding dong ditching at 3am after toilet papering someone’s yard, egging cars and front doors, peeping tomming a few neighbor’s personal lives, stealing possessions, breaking windows, putting sharp objects in the middle of the street for cars to run over, I once filled a water balloon with urine and threw it at a mentally disabled girl…Get the picture? I was a bad, bad kid. Hanging out with the worst group of older kids I could find. All in my own, quiet little neighborhood of Western America.

One day, the guys were feeling more foolish than usual and I was quickly convinced to allow them to douse my sweatshirt with flammable hairspray and light me on fire, on camera… Needless to say, I took a trip to the ER with 2nd degree burns on my left arm. My parents wanted me to start hanging out with new friends. But I soon realized I didn’t have any friends. The only people that wanted to hang out with me were the horrible monsters up and down the street that I knew only wanted to watch me get hurt, act a fool or take a verbal beating. I soon fell into a depression and wanted to kill myself. It had become too hard to live with the embarrassment and shame of who I was and I didn’t see things getting any better. I began to hate life. I wanted to hurt the people that hurt me. I wanted to cry for help but I knew nobody would help me. I bought the lie that the world would be better without me…

Drug the child

I had been taking many different medications to help me combat my ADD, ADHD and depression. I had talked to many doctors, psychologist and therapists growing up, I don’t think much of any of them really cared enough to dig deep enough into my pain. They just wanted me to fill the schedule and get them paid, in my opinion. I felt as if no one knew what the hell was going on in my life and I was doomed to this state of loneliness and spiraling depression, and so I tried to kill myself with antidepressants… Oh, the irony! I took 8 or 9 Zoloft at God knows how many mg, but I know it was strong. They had been upping me on the dosage for a few months at that point. But it didn’t take long before my stomach began to hurt and I started to worry that I would be in excruciating pain and not die…

After a few min I told my dad that I had taken a bunch of pills and tried to kill myself. He told me to try and throw up and that I would be fine. I dry heaved a bit but never vomited. So, the drugs had fully gotten into my system and I was feeling all kinds of crazy. I had a stomach ache and passed out from the pain of depression in hopes that I would never awaken… Only to find myself awake on the couch with my dad still watching baseball on the t.v. Not in a hospital or an ambulance… Still at home, I was in a state of shock. Hallucinating and scared, I began to wonder if it was all a dream. Perhaps I didn’t really try to kill myself? Perhaps I had dreamt up the whole day as a vivid nightmare of my emotional decomposer in my mind?… Of course! Why else would I be lying on the couch while my dad sits on the recliner watching tv and enjoying a beer after telling him that I had tried to commit suicide and overdosed on a medicine that could do a lot of harm?… Unless he had no intention of helping me and couldn’t care less if I died… I saw strange things like a black hole in my wall 8 ft in diameter filled with a nothingness or a darkness that can only be described as a hallucinated manifestation of the God shaped hole of my soul.

I still to this day don’t know why my dad didn’t take me to the hospital. I haven’t seen him since 2013, just after I became born again… I realized at that point that if a change was going to be made in my life, it was going to be by my own doing and not my parents. I decided during the summer between 8th and 9th grade I would start over at a new school. A school where the majority of my junior high peers and neighborhood punks would not be attending. I had to drive a few extra miles to go to a nicer high school instead of the local high school, but it was all worth it to have a fresh start at a new school.

Straight Edge Hardcore Punk

Once I realized that I would be able to get a fresh start at a new school, I decided to reinvent myself a bit… So, instead of an evil manipulatable vandal, I was now a rebel skater punk, flying solo. I knew less than a handful of people from junior high that went to my new high school across town, so I knew I would be able to reestablish myself with little to no feedback. I decided to go straight edge because that was the cool thing to do at the time… Oh, What’s straight edge you ask?

Straight edge (symbolised as sXe) is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco and other recreational drugs in a reaction to the excesses of the punk subculture. For some, this extends to refraining from engaging in promiscuous sex, masturbation, and following a vegetarian or vegan diet, and/or not using caffeine or even prescription drugs. The term was adopted from the song Straight Edge by the hardcore punk band Minor threat. This is not based on what we would call biblical morality, but a type of extreme secular punk rock legalism.

The only rhyme or reason for this attitude or behavior is an anti establishment, anti rebel rebellion that expresses the established rebellion to the common punk:

"I’m punk rock. More punk rock then the punks and the rockers, without the use of sex, alcohol, coffee, meat, cannabis, drugs and all that other non punk rock stuff that all the punks use to become more punk. I’m the anti punk/ punk rocker!"… I know it’s ridiculous. The power of retrospect is a heck of a thing. There I was rebelling against nothing and no one for no reason. That is So punk rock! I was a regular James Dean; a rebel without a cause. This time with no more cigarettes. No more alcohol. No more prescription drugs. I’d say no more promiscuous sex or illegal drugs but none of that stuff was evident in my freshman year of highschool anyway and I wasn’t having any of that even if I wanted too.. Talking about the sex of course… As for the meat and coffee, I continued to relish and enjoy, it’s not like these laws were written in stone by the finger of God… So I suppose I wasn’t full blown sXe, but it was a better identity than the one I lived prior. I was more of a lone wolf that traveled from small click to small click.

So instead of consuming cigarettes and booze, I choose to get filled with my own bitterness, drunk on my own teenage testosterone, and getting high on my aggressive rage. I traded in my Identity, being a jackass and a vandal for a straight edge punk. My clothes had changed, my attitude had gotten worse, and now my worldview was derived from a sense of my own understanding of ‘the survival of the fittest’ and I was getting in shape for my future fights, no longer flights. This time I was going to be ready for whatever the world was gonna throw at me, and this time I was going to throw it back!

Starting over… New school and a New Fool

I started high school anew and I started feeling less hostile at such a new and refreshing environment. My new school was much less hostile than the other high school I was going to attend. I didn’t feel the need to fight to survive like I did in junior high, but I kept my guard up anyhow. I started making friends with people in all sorts of different clicks. I of course was in special needs classes but nobody outside of my classes knew about it so, as far as everyone outside of my class was concerned, I was a normal kid that they never had a class with… It’s strange when I think about it. Why do we care what people think about us? Especially people we don’t know. Its as if we feel the possibility of the potential loss of a potential friend that might someday care about us… Potentially. So, we don’t want to destroy these relationships before they start; Thus we walk on eggshells for strangers so we can feel like we will be accepted?!?… No?… Just me?… Fine. Well, I digress…

I started off wanting to just be invisible, laying low, getting by… Surviving. To my surprise I soon made acquaintances here and there, but soon I realized I just wanted to be accepted by people in my heart… Fast forward a few months, I’m hanging out with the skater punks and back to the mud the pig goes… There I was in a new environment, with new people and I still went back to the bad boy skater punk mentality and crowd… I guess it makes sense considering that I wanted to be accepted and I had experience skating, it was the easiest crowd to fit into. I had played sports in the past and also some experience in taekwondo, but I just didn’t vibe with the athletes or jocks. For some reason or another, I felt like I needed to be in a click to feel validated, so just hanging out with some nondescript group of kids without the right label over my head was just not going to make me feel like I am somebody, but hanging out with the skaters would?… Yes, my secular American male adolescent mindset was right where the enemy wanted it. Not concerned with the good, right and true aspects of life but the finite, materialistic and worldly things that mean nothing in the big picture of life. Don’t get me wrong, I love skateboarding, but these guys were no role models.

Big man on campus

One day, the skaters got into turf war with the goth kids… Well, it wasn’t really a turf war, more like a Hey, you’re sitting where I want to walk!.. I’m gonna ridicule you and call you names because you wear black clothes and you seem different than me! … Yep, that’s what we did. Well, some spit and threw trash. Not me, I was bigger than that, stronger too. So I did what any strong, testosterone filled teenage male would do… I flipped a 400 lbs concrete bench onto a pile of book bags and purses, effectively crushing many valuables and personal effects of the gothic click. With a roar from the skaters and a gasp from the goths, this confrontation was over. In my foolish mind, we won. Of course the skaters were impressed with my strength and audacity, thus giving me instant street credit. I wasn’t just some punk rock wallflower anymore, I was the Goliath of the group. I was suspended and fined for the damages of any and all damaged items.

For some reason or another, I felt guilty. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt like maybe I had gone too far this time… I brought one girl to tears, I found out later Tina was her name. She never did anything to me to deserve having her personal assets crushed due to my malice and my pride.

I soon realized that I didn’t like the person that I had become. Between freshman year and sophomore year I made another identity change… This time I was just gonna be a ‘regular high school American male’, whatever that means. I wasn’t gonna be a punk or a skater or anything that could be labeled other than normal. I was still a cold and angry person at heart, but I wanted to be more, I wanted to be loved not just merely accepted. I had to rethink how I was going to do this…

Time for Divorce … Let’s go to Church

My parents began to have a falling out in my junior high school years which eventually led to divorce when I was in highschool, and so I had to seek advice and guidance from the only place I could think of, the Church. My family had gone to Church mostly on christmas and easter growing up. We were C.E.O. Christians… Ya know, (Christmas / Easter Only)… But when my parents started having bigger problems we went to Church more and more often, thus I soon understood that neither of my parents were capable of helping me, let alone themselves and their disintegrating marriage. Let me tell you something from personal experience my friend, going through the motions, practicing tradition, doing religion and playing Church will not save you, your family or a single soul. Say all the Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers that you want, none of it can or will ever save a soul if it is only words and motions. God looks at the heart.

So, we started going to Church somewhat regularly. It was a chore for all of us but I made a couple of friends in youth group, and I soon began to hang out with my new Church click and quickly forgot my former lifestyle. Of course I understood nothing about Jesus, or the Bible, or what it meant to have a relationship with the one true designer of the universe. It was a Lutheran Church, nothing against Martin Luther, or Lutherans in general for that matter. I have many friends that I serve with who identify as Lutherans that I love and respect to this day. This particular Church was strongly based in tradition and religion rather than community and a relationship with Christ.

I understood that the pastors wore robes and yelled from time to time as that’s when I would awake momentarily… There was organ music, and we had to light candles at the beginning and put them out properly at the end, stand up, sit down, chanting, etc…

Look, I made a handful of friends and I learned how to play piano when nobody was around. It wasn’t a bad place by any means. They would even let me sneak into the sanctuary and noodle around on the keys and drums every now and again before youth group. It was fun, but not a great place where a rascal like me could get acquainted with Jesus. I started hanging out with my new Church click more and more and thus arriving at the destination of friendship that would eventually lead me to the introduction of my now wife.

I thought I had found a better group of friends that I wouldn’t have to be a monster around to impress, and they were. They were all good friends of mine. But on the inside I was still a dark, sad, angry little boy regardless of my company and surroundings. I finally found what I thought was acceptance, friendship and moral guidance…It wasn’t enough… I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more. I didn’t want to merely survive in relationships, I wanted to thrive. But something new arose in me. I needed more understanding and information on the how and why of life, the universe and everything in it. I knew I wanted acceptance, but by who? I knew I wanted love, but why? I knew the universe existed, but how? Or more importantly, why is there anything at all rather than nothing?…

Who are you really?

I was constantly bothered by more questions. Who am I?… Where did we come from?… Where am I going?… What is a soul?… What does it mean to be human?… Where do all these questions come from?… Should I seek out a life of happiness or meaning?… What is meaning?… What is happiness?… Why do I have this need to understand the mysteries of life and the universe?… Why are we here?… What does it mean to dream?… Or perhaps I would be better off not seeking any answers at all?… But we can’t; that’s not how we were built, and that is not why we are here.

My simple secular adolescent mind had come to a tipping point of philosophical debate and the questioning of everything I thought I knew. No matter what my circumstances in life, I was questioning the powers that be as if I just knew that there was something very wrong and broken with the system I was in and it was only going to get worse.

I was outwardly rebellious as a kid, but as a teen I became more of a class clown than a deviant. I started to ponder the big questions in life only to have my attention redirected to my parents hate, my sister’s pain and the secular world. As much as I started having thoughts of the theological and philosophical implications of life, I had more than enough distractions to derail my train of thought and my new found desire for wisdom and knowledge. So, I reduced myself to a state of emotional survival in a broken home with no hopes or dreams for the future. I put on a happy face and tried to act normal. I suffered silently and grew a tougher exterior and masked my pain with jokes and sarcasm. My ADHD enabled me to think quickly about multiple subjects in an instant. Great for witty comebacks, not so great for learning in a public school environment.

I was in a special needs class for all kinds of kids with different developmental disabilities during my freshman, sophomore and junior year. Some kids had physical disabilities, some had emotional disturbances, others were just lazy with bad attitudes. I didn’t quite know where I fit. I wasn’t physically handicapped by any means. I was emotionally disturbed but I didn’t think anyone knew or even cared for that matter, but I didn’t think I had to be in a special education class for it.

I figured that most teenagers were emotionally disturbed at some level, some just more than others. Even today as a teacher, I can see that kids are actually more confused about life and the world than I was when I was younger. The media and government are working overtime to pluralize morality, sexuality, family and politics while ostracizing anyone who identifies with absolute truth at almost every turn. Sure you were born a boy, but you can choose to be a girl if you feel like it. … And if you feel like 1+1 shouldn’t equal 2 because it doesn’t FEEL right, it can be 3 or 4 or purple elephant. Whatever makes you FEEL better right?… Sorry amigo, but this is a dangerous path that turns into a very slippery slope due to a lack of adherence to basic logic and reasoning skills given to us by God that have now been replaced with a postmodern, pluralistic anti-theistic consensus worldview indoctrinated into the moldable minds of the youth of America… So, considering how confusing and messed up things are now, the problems we faced then where almost mundane compared to the challenges of today… No matter how positive or negative I feel, feminine or masculine, my blood type will still shows up as O- male, even if I want it to say that I’m A+ female; it’s doesn’t change who I really am. A man, an O- man who’s positive he’s a man. We now understand that blood tests can determine an infant’s gender in the whom at seven weeks and that same gender marker remains the same for the remainder of a person’s life regardless of how we feel or how we superficially change ourselves.

What’s the point?

I remember one day in particular where I was motivated for the first time ever to get out of special needs classes… My science teacher was giving a lecture out of our biology book; A lite lecture on the cell membrane and as he’s reading he would look up and see who was paying attention. In this instance most of the class wasn’t paying attention, some drawing, some picking their noses, some with their eyes closed or asleep on their desk all together. Mind you, this guy hated his job, most of the students and a majority of the staff and he made it very clear every now and again. This time he checked out. He looked at the disinterested class punks, closed the book in one hand and threw it onto his desk 10 feet away, SLAM! What’s the point?… You’re all gonna be flipping burgers when you get out of here anyway. You don’t need to know this crap… For the first time ever, I wanted to be better to simply prove someone wrong. Why? Because I knew he was wrong. Even though I didn’t like school, or the foolish wannabe gangsters in my class, and to boot our teachers didn’t see anything beyond burger flipping in our future… I wanted to get out of these classes. I started to see more and more what a waste of time and energy all of this was. I was put in these classes to kill time, waste taxpayer money and prepare me to become a worthless consumer and a degenerate of society. It was a waste of time, energy and resources. Why would a public school spend so much effort keeping a kid like me in a special needs classes and not attend to my needs in any type of special circumstances, or any for that matter? Because the public school system’s goal is not to educate children, it’s to indoctrinate, isolate and propagate them into adhering to a specific secular worldview… And it’s working very well.

Sure, they learn their ABC’s and 123’s, but where’s the Do-Re-Mi’s on morality? Where are the foundations of humanity? Where is the music and art? What happened to critical thinking and creativity? It’s almost gone from general society, and it begins in the schools and resolves in the homes. Look, if we don’t do anything about it, we’re living by default and contributing more to the problem than the solution. If we do nothing, we leave the future in the hands secular modern man. It’s not that I have all the answers by any means, I merely want you to consider the part you play in the world, the universe and eternity through the eyes of a consciousness bigger than your own.

So, there I was in my early years of highschool, an ignorant, arrogant, lost and lonely fool, content in a special needs class for kids who had genuine developmental disabilities. Sure I had bad case of ADD and ADHD, but did really belong in a special needs class?… It bothered me that I was there. Why was I there? I was content in my lack of motivation. I wasn’t pushed to be more, to be better. Thus I developed a false understanding of who I was and became what society would have conditioned me to be by default. Some of the teachers treated me like a degenerate who wouldn’t amount to anything… And they were right, I was on a path to nowhere and then death. I had no motivation or proper affection, direction and correction… This is not what I was created for. This is not why Christ died for me… Of course at the time, I knew none of this.

Turn the beat around…

At about this point my life my way of thinking about the world was about to take a heavy change of direction. I started to play music for real. Sure I would noodle around on the piano and drums in the Church before youth group once in awhile, but I only did that because my dad never got me the guitar he promised me when I played pop warner football in junior high. My team went undefeated the entire season all the way until the finals. In the finale game we got crushed. There was no guitar… Dad asked me to play another year and promised a guitar again… But fool me once; ya know… Thus, you see why I never went back to playing football…

Anyhow, when I was 16, I met a guy named Peter, an older student from my video production class who had an old white Fender Squire for sale. I had saved up enough money and he hooked me up with a the whole starter kit. Guitar, amp, cables, strap and pics. Of course I had only learned how to play one song before I even bought the guitar. It was a song entitled Brain Stew by Green Day. A song about smoking too much meth and losing your mind in secular loneliness… But it’s easy to learn on the guitar. My friend Clinton had taught it to me a few months back and once I realized how much of a natural ability I had on the guitar, I had to have one. Soon after I started teaching myself how to play guitar, and by teaching myself I mean I knew nothing, but I could figure out how to play songs by ear. I would listen then by process of elimination I could reduce what was being played to simple melodies and power chords. I loved it! I started learning all my favorite songs and played them for friends and family.

My youth pastor Scott was observant in seeing how interested I was in playing music and gave me his acoustic guitar when he moved away… He’s a big reason why I kept playing. His gift to me would speak volumes for years to come. Like a seed planted in a field, it’s fruit bearing plant wouldn’t be seen for a season, but in time it’s yield would multiply. For years I’ve been playing music, but I’ve never forgotten that generous gift.

I was learning how to play music at an exceedingly fast rate. In fact I’d never done anything in my life that came as naturally as playing music. I felt as if there was something beyond me giving me knowledge and understanding into this invisible language known as music. For the first time in my life, I was great at something.

Xander The Talent Archer

After a few months I started getting recognized at school for being that guy who walked around playing the guitar and singing songs. I had begun to come out of my emotional shell, I was making friends and being creative. I joined the theater department and became a full blown thespian. My acting coach was a man by the name of Mr. Reed Van Halen, and he taught me so much about life. More than just acting, but philosophy, history, logic, morality, poetry and pop culture. He was like a surrogate father to me in some respects. He helped motivate me to test out of special ed classes and enter mainstream education in my senior year. He saw more in me than any other teacher could or would ever voice to me. It was a struggle as I wasn’t taking any medication and I had no tutor to help me out. I was on my own. Of course the Lord’s timing is impeccable, because in this same time period I would also meet my high school sweetheart.

Senior year I finally found the motivation to be more than what society had enabled me to be. I fell in love with a beautiful, wonderful and awesome young lady that would one day become my wife. I honed in on my craft and my abilities. I graduated high school with a low average but I made it out by the skin of my teeth. What most people don’t know is that I attempted suicide again, as I was a single grade away from not graduating. I found out I would get a D in a class that I needed a C into graduate. I was scared, depressed and ashamed of myself. I had come so far to graduate in mainstream classes with my new friends and I was about to flunk out. Why did I even get out of special ed? I could have just graduated as I was, but no; I had to push myself to be more, to be acceptable, to be normal, and what did I get? ‘Sorry Xander, but you don’t walk with your classmates in graduation, no cap toss, no summer fun, no friends and you’ll be remembered as a fool the rest of your life.’ Something had to be done. I locked myself in a hot car a few weeks before graduation in hopes that I could just die rather than be socially ostracized. I waited inside the sweltering hot car for over an hour with the windows up and the heat building up. I was torturing myself because I felt I deserved to die for being such an idiot and not worthy of friendship or love. Thankfully, the pain was too great and I eventually opened a door and got out of the car. No one seemed to notice, but I knew then that even if I graduated on time, I wouldn’t survive in the real world, not with the few skills I gathered in my final year of public education. I needed to be good at something that I could get a job doing or make a career out of. My only jobs/ skills at the time were cleaning toilets in a high school, washing dishes at an Italian restaurant, selling candy and stuffed animals at six flags, and my little acting skills and musical talents weren’t going to get me far… I needed to do something with my life. Fortunately for me, Mr. Van Halen had my back and wanted me to walk with my classmates at graduation. It seemed as if he was the only one willing to step up and help a kid out, and he did. He talked to the teacher whose class I was failing. Mr